The news made me happy, too -- I thought my emotional reaction to the NO news couldn't get any worse, and then I heard this grand old musician was missing.

(Sounds like his manager, who's been with him for most of a lifetime, made himself such a pain in the ass for the authorities that they went out and retrieved Fats et al just to shut him up. Now that's earning your 10%.)

My son has volunteered to go to LA to help in the rescue and relief. (He's an EMT but his license has lapsed while he was finishing his degree, now he's applying for med school)

He did the same in 2001, but that time they didn't actually use him. This time I think they will. But his orientation isn't till next week -- I hope that's because our county has produced that many volunteers, not because the Red Cross can't get it together any faster. I suspect the former: ever since the Loma Prieta earthquake and all the out of town help we got, it's been traditional for our county to respond to disasters in other places.

I'm glad for Fats and for his friends and family. But it occurs to me that he doesn't mean more to them than a lot of people who have died meant to their friends and families. As a single data point in this damned, preventable hecatomb, it's pretty cold comfort. The fact that he's famous is really neither here nor there.

I assume he had a car and at least enough gas money that he could have gotten out of town. What the hell was he doing there? I keep hearing about people deciding to "ride it out". Was he thinking this was no big deal? Did people consider the warnings to be cries from chicken little? Do we need some sort of tsunami/hurricane/suitcase-nuke disaster warning system? This can't all be "we stayed because we couldn't afford to leave". Either the warning was too late. Or people considered evacuation wsa an overreaction.

"I'm glad for Fats and for his friends and family. But it occurs to me that he doesn't mean more to them than a lot of people who have died meant to their friends and families. As a single data point in this damned, preventable hecatomb, it's pretty cold comfort. The fact that he's famous is really neither here nor there."

That's a bit harsh, don't you think? There is no individual tragedy to which one can't say "oh, very well, but look at all these other people's tragedies, too." And yet as specific individuals we can't help but care about other specific individuals. I care about Fats Domino because I care about American pop music, in which he's an important figure. I was pretty sure that some of Making Light's other readers shared my sentiments in this regard. Loftily hectoring us about how other people have died, just because we expressed some care about one particular person, is neither insightful nor impressive.

I'm glad for Fats and for his friends and family. But it occurs to me that he doesn't mean more to them than a lot of people who have died meant to their friends and families. As a single data point in this damned, preventable hecatomb, it's pretty cold comfort. The fact that he's famous is really neither here nor there.

We've invited Fats Domino into our lives by listening to his music. As I am worried sick about those people I know in N'awlins, I am also concerned about Fats Domino. Just concerned. My neighbor is worried sick about his people -- and concerned about Fats Domino. And the guy down the street, who doesn't know anybody in N'awlins, is concerned about Fats Domino. We each are worried sick about our small corner of the catastrophe -- and concerned about Fats Domino. But there are a lot of us with that concern.

The club member who has important things happen in his life gets listed in the club newsletter. The local important person gets listed in the local fishwrapper. The regional important person gets listed in the big city newspaper. And the person who is known nationwide or internationally gets the big headlines. That's what "being famous" means.

Fats Domino is not more important to each of us. He's important to more of us.